Herb and Josh had no thrilling adventure to relate. Their voyage up to date had been a most uneventful one. And how they did listen with wide open eyes when Jack modestly narrated the astounding event that had overtaken himself and the crew of the _Tramp_ since last seeing the others. "It beats the Dutch," complained Josh, as the story was completed, "how some fellers are lucky. Why, we've got all our lightning rods out, but never a thing happened. We go sailing along like a duck in a mill pond; and it's nothing but cook and stuff with Herb here. I'm sick of the sight of grub, that's what." "That will do for you," spoke up his skipper. "You know you've begun to feel like a fighting cock, so you said. And Josh, you ate twice as much the last supper we had as I ever knew you to before. I wager that before this trip is over you'll be rid of that feeling of indigestion that's been troubling you so long." "That's right," declared Jack, cheerfully. "Nothing like a life in the open to tone a chap up, give him a sharp appetite, and make his food agree with him. Why, Josh, the fact is you look a hundred per cent better right now, don't he boys?"' "Sure he do that," said Jimmie, readily. "Look at the color in his cheeks. And, by the powers, his eye shines like it niver did before. Josh, ye're going to be a well man in a few days more, and kin ate a house widout falin' it, so you kin." The machinist, under the spur of double pay from the impatient George, made it a one day job. True, he had to stay after dark to finish; but the boys gave him his supper; and before bedtime came he pronounced the engine of the speed boat as in "apple-pie" shape. So after all they had not lost much time. Indeed, as it would have been out of the question to have started at the hour the _Comfort_ arrived, Jack declared that they had no reason for complaint. Promptly at eight on the following morning they set out. It was cloudy, and looked as though it might rain before the day was done. George, anxious to test his rejuvenated engine, shot away at full speed, and as usual they lost him in the distance. Still, Jack had a suspicion that the skipper of the _Wireless_ would not be apt to try for a distance record on this day, as he had done in the past. They had talked with many negroes and whites while stopping at Memphis. The machinist had taken a keen interest in their race; and tried to give them all the information in his power about the lower Mississippi, between Memphis and Vicksburg. As he was something of a duck hunter he knew considerable about the flooded sloughs skirting the wide river. He had also hinted about a disturbed condition among the planters. They were having an unusually great amount of trouble with vicious characters, mostly blacks; and several lynching bees had taken place within the preceding fortnight.